XENIA — Xenia’s finance department received some high praise at a recent council meeting.

Finance Director Ryan Duke was presented with the Auditor of State Award with Distinction for the city’s fiscal year 2018 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), which the auditor’s office must deem “clean.”

“This puts the City of Xenia in a very select group,” said Joe Braden, west regional liaison for the Ohio Auditor of State. “This award represents the hard work of the city. And all the employees that strive each day to achieve accounting excellence.”

The auditor’s office audits 5,900 entities annually and around 4 percent are eligible for the top honor.

“(Assistant Finance Director) Jason Lake did a ton of work on this report,” Duke said. “We’ve got a lot of great people in our finance division who work hard to make sure that we’re following the appropriate protocol, procedures, polices, so thank you to everybody in the finance division.”

Duke also credited the city’s various department heads for their work in making sure the city is compliant.

“Really thankful to the entire city,” Duke said.

To be eligible for the award with distinction, the audit report must not contain any findings for recovery, material citations, material weaknesses, significant deficiencies, uniform guidance (single audit) findings or questioned costs.

The audit report must also show public money has not been misspent or misappropriated.

In addition, the city’s management letter must not contain comments related to: ethics referrals; questioned costs less than the threshold per the uniform guidance; lack of timely annual financial report submission; bank reconciliation issues; failure to obtain a timely single audit in accordance with uniform guidance; findings for recovery less than $500; public meetings or public records issues; and the entity has no other financial or other concerns.

The finance department has been recognized several times in the past for excellence. Most recently, it was recognized for its 2017 CAFR, receiving the Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association, the 32nd time Xenia has received the honor. It also received the award of distinction from for 2001, 2002, and 2003.

The city publishes a CAFR each year online and also participates in the treasurer of state’s Ohio Checkbook program, which shows expenditures dating back to 2011.